You should obviously delete those downloaded files like a good boy.

You should strive to improve as a person rather than be content being a stagnant asshole

As a published (if hilariously unsuccessful) author; no, no it isn’t.

No. Here, let me introduce you to things like libraries, and education.

And, again, he’s not an asshole for being right. He’s an asshole for having no sympathy for the loss of what should have been an archival giant.

No.

Not for over half a century, once Disney lobbied the US federal government to extend temporary monopolies to egregious lengths. The point of intellectual property rights is to build a robust public domain, so every year of every extension is a year denied to the public.

This has been forgotten or ignored by the ownership class with Sony and Nintendo prosecuting use and public archival abandonware games the way Disney goes after nursery murals.

So no, we would be better off with no IP laws all than the current laws we have, and the ownership class routinely screw artists, developers and technicians for their cut of their share of the profits in what is known as Hollywood Accounting. And the record labels will cheat any artist or performer who doesn’t have a Hammerhead Lawyer (or bigger) to ensure their contract is kosher.

So no. Come with me to Barbary; we’ll ply there up and down. 🏴‍☠️

Copyright is bullshit, so no.

Unequivocally no.

That depends on if you see the current copyright system as far to start with. The current system is a far cry from how it was created and was co-opted by companies like Disney to maintain monopolies on their IP for MUCH longer than the system was supposed to protect.

“No one should stand up for new rights. Don’t rock the boat bro.”

Your mindset is the road to a dictatorship.

What does the Mafia do? Show up, “Wow you got a lot of valuable things here Be a shame if someone broke them. Best listen to us.”

The Mafia leverages potential of damage to existing value to extract cooperation.

I see very little difference here between the Mafia and the plaintiff.

FWIW I didn’t downvote you for this. I read the Ars article and saw the bit about them making it unlimited during the early pandemic days, but it seemed to imply that is was above board during other times. So if the whole case hinges on their actions during lockdown when people lost access to their own local libraries it becomes a letter vs spirit of the law thing to me personally. They broke the letter of the law, did they break the spirit of it? Was what they did immoral? The justice system isn’t perfect and as a society we continually refine and redefine our laws and have been forever. The state of Louisiana just signed a law into effect that requires poster sized copies of the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom, kindergarten through college. If someone breaks that law, what side of history will they be on?

If unlimited lending was something that IA was doing all the time, I can see it both ways. If it was for a few months during lockdown, then I think the court got this wrong.

This isn’t about right or wrong though. It’s explicitly about whether or not they broke the law.

They did. They did so loudly and proudly. This is why we are here, where they lost the legal battle.

If someone is pointing a gun at you with their finger on the trigger, and you say “Just try to shoot me! I dare you! You know you won’t you little chickenshit.” then you should have a pretty good expectation to get shot.

Everything else is valid, but significantly less important. IA has to operate in the rules that currently exist, not what the rules should be. There are better ways to get bad laws changed than to dare someone to find you guilty of them.

Maybe this case will be the first building block towards overturning the asinine digital lending laws. I would love if it was, but I’m not holding my breath.